Street repaving and seal coating highlight 2011 construction season

The City of Minneapolis is making a major investment in streets this season, with more than $19 million going toward road reconstruction, repaving, repair and seal coating in 2011. By fall, more than 47 miles of streets in town will have new, smooth driving surfaces. There will also be more bike paths and bike lanes around town, making bicycling an even more attractive option for commuters and recreational riders.

An investment of more than $10 million will be made in reconstructing and resurfacing Minneapolis streets. Also, more than $9 million will go toward street maintenance, which includes pothole repair and seal coating. Downtown streets are getting a lot of attention this season: When factoring previous paving, seal coating and other street projects, well over half of all streets in the downtown core will have a driving surface that’s three years old or less.

Some of this year’s street projects include:

Riverside Avenue – This busy street gets around 15,000 vehicles driving on it every day: a number that will likely climb once Washington Avenue on the University of Minnesota campus permanently closes as part of the Central Corridor light-rail project later this month. Over the next two years, crews will reconstruct Riverside from Franklin Avenue to Cedar Avenue. This year’s work will reconstruct the eastern half of the street, from 23rd Avenue South to Franklin Avenue.

High-Volume Corridor Reconditioning – A number of streets identified as among the busiest in downtown will have their surfaces milled off and repaved. This work should extend the lives of these streets by a decade.

Interstate 35W detour route rehabilitation – Many streets used as detour routes after the Aug. 1, 2007 collapse of the I-35W Bridge over the Mississippi River suffered more wear and tear than usual. As a result, $2.3 million in Federal Highway Administration emergency relief funding is going towards resurfacing these thoroughfares. A number of the streets are downtown, complementing the High-Volume Corridor Reconditioning work.

Neighborhood paving projects – Residential streets are often paved as groups. The following neighborhood will have significant repaving work done:

Ventura Village

Hale & Hale East

Wenonah West

This season, an additional 2.7 miles of off-street bike trails will be completed in Minneapolis. Also, several streets in the city will be re-striped to create nearly 48 miles of bike lanes. By the end of the year, Minneapolis will have more than 86 miles of off-street trails and 91 miles of on-street bike lanes.

This is the third year of the $27.5 million Infrastructure Acceleration Program, which supplements the City's existing infrastructure plan. Street projects are generally funded through the City's Capital Improvements Program and the general maintenance program. However, those projects were not keeping pace with the overall decline of street conditions. IAP increased the number of street projects done each year, slowing the decline of street conditions and making better roadways for all drivers

Many of these projects will require road closures, lane restrictions and detours. The best way drivers can find out about these traffic changes is by subscribing to the City's traffic alerts. The City will also notify the local media about any major traffic impacts so they can share them with the public.

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